


Let's Talk About Houseplants

by schizdroid



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Second Chances, imminent future AU, maybe they'll find their way back to each other, post interactive introverts, they're broken up at the start
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-02 13:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15797595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schizdroid/pseuds/schizdroid
Summary: The Interactive Introverts tour is in the past.Spooky Week has come and gone.Gamingmas 2018 never happened.Dan and Phil, for the first time in their adult lives, are living separately and trying to figure out how to have separate careers.They gave the people what they want, and now that that's over and so are they... what do Dan and Phil want?





	1. Chapter 1

> hey phil, i hope this isn't weird but i wanted to tell you i really enjoyed your video
> 
> i've thought about doing a sort of house tour (but not a house tour) of my own, but i never quite landed on how to do it properly, you know, so it didn't just end up an actual house tour. i had to find the joke first. oh well just another idea added to the file, you know me. you did a great job, it was really funny. not that you need me to tell you that obv, i just wanted to. it was really good. your houseplants look great #houseplantgoals

Dan slammed his laptop shut. What was he even doing? _houseplantgoals_? He stood up from his chair and indelicately flung his macbook onto the indented seat. _Your houseplants look great?_  Dan shook his head at himself. _Idiot_. He went to the kitchen and aimlessly rummaged through the empty fridge; he had a lot of condiments but nothing to put them on or dip in them. He made a mental note to order groceries tomorrow. The same mental note he had been making daily, and ignoring daily, for over a week now. There was a shop practically next door to his flat, but the thought of anybody recognizing him and talking to him kept him from going out. He didn't want to have to smile or answer questions. He didn't want to be human right now. He just wanted food delivered to his door with minimal eye contact and lots of cheese. Tomorrow, then. He even set an alarm on his phone.

Dan rolled his eyes thinking about the email. Houseplants. This is what it had come to. This time last year he and Phil had been having the time of their lives, and now Dan couldn't even write the man he had shared his entire adult life with a simple email about a YouTube video. Something small twinged in Dan's chest as a feeling of déjà vu flooded him. Time really was cyclical—two people end just as they began: as strangers. Maybe Dan would find it poetic if it wasn't so cruel. He grabbed a glass of water and splashed some on his face for good measure. He took a sip and again shook his head at himself, at the lie. This time last year was enjoyable, yes, but there were already cracks in the glass that not even whale-watching in Australia could hold together. It only took them until November to shatter apart completely.

Dan took his water and went back to his chair in the corner of the lounge, picking up the laptop with more care than when he'd put it down. What could he say to Phil that wasn't about houseplants? He probably shouldn't even mention the video, that could just open up a dialogue about when Dan might post, if ever. It was August 2019 and he hadn't posted anything of his own since January. They still had a backlog of gaming videos filmed in November that had been going up every 4 weeks or so, but they only had 2 left. And then what? Maybe he should open up that dialogue, someone had to.  

> hey phil, i loved your video today! are we abandoning the gaming channel after the last video goes up like we abandoned our relationship?  

Dan stared at the screen for a moment before backspacing it all away. Nobody had abandoned anything. Hindsight is a malleable thing; Dan knew he remembered things as and when they suited him. If he was feeling mad at Phil, he remembered that night in America when Phil told him to stay in his own room that night before loudly closing the door in Dan's face. If he was feeling guilty and missing Phil, he remembered telling Phil earlier that same night that he was sick of Phil holding him back from the life he wanted. Dan cringed at the memory and wished hindsight was malleable enough that he could time travel to take those words back. "You're holding me back"—that was what he'd said to Phil. It wasn't even true. Phil had given him the world. But they could no longer decide how to exist in that world together with their changing wants and needs. They were at a standstill. That barrier combined with months of jaw-breaking smiles at meet-and-greets followed by the show and then chlorine-scented hotel sheets before doing it all over again the next day... there just hadn't been enough alone time, truly alone, for the two of them. Dan had felt more and more like a robot playing a role alongside another robot; they had become Dan And Phil—the exact versions of themselves the entire tour was intended to dispel. _How's that for irony?_ Dan often wondered.

Dan closed his laptop again, but pulled his phone from his pocket. Fuck email. Email was for business and Dan didn't want to talk to Phil about business. He scrolled through his messages until he saw Phil Lester—their last exchange had been months ago and had pertained to decisions about upcoming merch. Okay, maybe texting was also for business, but it felt less formal to Dan. Like so many times over the last several months, Dan's thumb hovered over the screen as all the possibilities of what he could type flashed through his mind: 

> _i'm sorry_
> 
> _thinking about you_
> 
> _fuck you_
> 
> _this is your fault_
> 
> _fuck me_
> 
> _this is my fault_
> 
> _i want you to fuck me_
> 
> _can we talk_  

Unlike the last several months, however, Dan didn't turn off his phone and go have a wank in the shower instead. This time, he typed out the words: 

>   _your vid was v lol_

and sent it before he could change his mind. Not expecting a response any time soon, Dan placed his phone on the table and thought maybe he would go have a wank in the shower after all, but the thought had barely crossed his mind before his phone let out a familiar alert. Text message received. Dan looked at the screen, barely believing the words Phil had sent him after months of nothing:

> _do you wanna come over?_


	2. Chapter 2

Well, it was done. The video was live.

Phil turned off the computer and placed his glasses beside the keyboard. He didn’t need or want to see the responses, not yet, not tonight. He rolled his chair back until it hit the side of his bed and he promptly dragged himself under the covers. It had been years since his office and his bedroom shared the same space, but downsizing felt right to him. More space just gave him more room to be alone. No, smaller was better. Being alone in their shared flat after Dan moved out had made Phil sure of that. Phil grabbed a pillow and snuggled up next to it. He didn't like living alone; it was too quiet, too... final. But he didn't need a roommate, financially speaking, and emotionally, he wasn't ready for someone else, someone new, to be in his personal spaces. Three months with his parents was enough to get him through the worst of it, and while he knew they liked having him there and would never have objected to him staying indefinitely, Phil needed to relearn how to be an adult on his own. Being single didn't have to mean reverting back to being a child, however tempting that might be. He had to take care of himself now. That said, it had been almost 6 months, and he still wasn't sure how well he was doing at it.

Phil sighed; he was exhausted and posting the video had given him a rush of adrenaline he didn't want. The video. It needed to be done at some point, he just hadn’t wanted to be the one to do it—the one to confirm they were done. But of course it had to be him; Dan hadn’t posted since January, and Phil knew better than to push. The thought had come to him more than once since then that Dan was waiting for him to go first, and that the longer Phil put it off, the longer he guaranteed Dan’s channel stayed dead. Phil felt guilty but, at the same time, annoyed with the guilt; Dan had been in his new flat longer than Phil had been in his, it shouldn’t be up to Phil to clear the way for Dan’s creative process. Especially now.

At least Dan’s creative process was working for one of them: the house tour idea had only come to Phil while thinking about what kind of video Dan might make. Something that would get the message across, but also be entertaining on its own merits, hopefully. _Not a house tour, a plant tour_ —the idea had even come to him in Dan’s voice. So that’s what Phil did. He filmed a tongue-in-cheek plant tour of his new flat, incidentally showing the rooms as background while talking at length about the quirks of each of his new green housemates. It was as close to releasing any kind of official statement as Phil planned on getting. A new, smaller flat with lots of plants and no Dan; how much clearer did he need to be?

It’s not like people hadn’t already guessed, like the theories hadn’t been floating around the internet for months— _Dan and Phil aren’t living together_ —conspiratorial whispers more often than not conveyed in all caps. No, they weren’t living together, and that fact was already difficult enough for Phil to deal with without the added pain of thousands of plaintive voices constantly asking him _why_? _Why aren’t you living together? Where did Dan go?_

Phil didn’t have an answer for them. But what he did have was plants. Lots and lots of plants. And for now they would have to do.

He wondered if Dan would watch the video. Did he watch any of Phil’s videos? Phil knew he would watch Dan’s, if Dan ever posted any. But it wasn’t something they discussed; any YouTube-related conversations they’d had over the last year had only been about the gaming channel. “Is the edit done?” “Do you want me to tweet it, or do you want to?” In February they decided to just take turns: Phil would deal with the March video, Dan with the April video, and so on. Dan still had the August video to upload, leaving Phil with one left for September. Just one gaming video with the two of them left. Then what? Marianne had been asking. Martyn had been asking. Even a little voice inside Phil had been asking. But it was just another question Phil didn’t want to answer, not yet. How could he answer what he himself didn’t want to know? There was still hope in the unknown, and Phil couldn’t help but hold on to that for as long as possible.

Phil squeezed his eyes shut and burrowed deeper under the covers, hoping that the warmth would be enough of a stand-in for comfort. His room was quiet and he listened to the soft sounds of his own breath while imagining the deafening volume of their followers reacting to his video out in the world. He decided to send some emoji replies on Twitter, just so it didn’t look like he was doing exactly what he was doing: hiding. Blankets as a substitute for comfort and emojis as a substitute for answers—2019 in a nutshell. He didn't read his @ replies, instead he replied with ample stars and plants to a lucky few who had simply retweeted the video, and then slid his phone under his pillow.

It was only 8 p.m., but Phil had barely slept the past few nights while finishing up the edit, and then going back and forth about whether he was actually going to post the video or not. But it was out there now, and though Phil was still terrified, the exhaustion won out and finally he slept.

Dan was in bed with him, both their heads under the covers, Dan’s breath warming the back of Phil’s neck.

“Where’d you go?” Phil murmured.

“We needed milk,” Dan murmured back.

It hadn’t been months, it had just been minutes, and Dan was back, and they were in the right bed in the right flat, together. Why didn’t that seem right to Phil? _What’s wrong?_ Nothing. Nothing was wrong—Dan’s hands were on Phil’s skin, warm and familiar, like they never left— _had they?_ —and their lips met and it was right and they were home—

The vibration of Phil’s phone woke him up. He pushed the covers off his face to find fresh air; the warmth had become suffocating as he slept. He squinted when confronted with the light of the room outside the dark cave of his covers. With the dream fresh in his mind, he reached his arm behind him in bed to confirm what he already knew—he was alone. His phone vibrated under his pillow again and he fished it out. 

> _your vid was v lol_

The blurry words on the screen didn’t make sense to Phil, and he rubbed his eyes. The message was from Dan? Phil quickly wiped the drool from the side of his face with his sleeve and looked at the time. It was just after 1 a.m. Was he still dreaming? Phil’s fingers worked faster than his brain and a second later, there were more words on the screen that didn’t make sense to him. Words that he had sent back to Dan. 

> _do you wanna come over?_

Three dots appeared instantly at the bottom of the screen as Dan typed back. 

> _be right there_


	3. Chapter 3

Phil heard the knock at the door just as he was putting his toothbrush back in its holder. He looked at himself in the mirror—the terror he was feeling was very much apparent on his face—and smoothed his hair and clothes. He looked exactly like a man who hadn’t slept in days and who had just woken up from a nap in a panic. Phil hoped his glasses at least covered the bags under his eyes.

There was another knock at the door and Phil couldn’t put it off any longer. This was it. Not at their management’s office, not at the IRL offices, not during business hours—nowhere that Phil had imagined them having their first real, hopefully calm, sit-down together since everything happened. No, it would be at Phil's own flat, where drool from his impromptu nap was still fresh on his pillow, at half one in the morning. Of course. Phil was surprised Dan had gotten there so quickly, it hadn’t even been 10 minutes since their last text; obviously they lived much closer to each other than Phil had realized. Strangely enough, he found that a comforting thought.

Phil opened the door to see Dan standing there, dressed in all black and looking just as pale and tired as Phil, which Phil also found strangely comforting. "Hey," Phil said.

“Hey.”

Phil stepped back and gestured Dan into his flat. Phil’s heart was beating so loudly, he worried Dan would hear it as he walked past. “Um—” Phil didn’t even know where to start. He was the one who had invited Dan over in the first place, but he didn't know why when he had done it, and he still didn't know why even with Dan right there in front of him.

Dan walked slowly around the room, running his fingers gently over the leaves of Phil's various plants as he passed them, as if checking they weren't plastic. He was looking everywhere but at Phil. “It’s a nice place,” Dan said, peering down the dark hall before heading for the kitchen, the only other room with lights on.

They sat at the small kitchen table, and Phil wondered why Dan hadn’t chosen to sit on the sofa in the lounge. Why choose to be more uncomfortable in an already uncomfortable situation?

“I, uh, have some pizza in the fridge. If you’re hungry,” Phil said. He just wanted to put off the inevitable for a little while longer, but as he said the words, he realized just how hungry he was.

Dan shook his head. “No, I’m good, thanks.” But Phil heard his stomach grumble as he said it.

Phil got up, “Well, I’m having some anyway, so.” He took the box out of the fridge and put the two largest pieces on a plate for Dan, and the remaining piece on a plate for himself. As he waited for the microwave to heat them up, he told Dan he’d barely eaten all day. “I kind of took an accidental nap all evening.”

“Accidental nap?” Dan chuckled, “I’ve been having a few of those, too.” He looked at the clock above the table—almost 1:30 a.m.—and a look of realization crossed his face. "Oh! I’m sorry, did I wake you with my text?”

“No, it’s okay! You might have saved me from starving to death in my sleep.” Phil put the plates on the table. Dan looked unconvinced, so Phil repeated, “It’s fine, really,” as he sat down across from him.

They chewed in silence for a few moments until Dan said, “I think your place is even smaller than mine."

“I don’t need much space,” Phil said with a shrug.

“No?”

Phil sat back in his chair and watched Dan finish off his pizza in a couple of bites. The edge in Dan’s voice, in the question, reminded him why they hadn’t spent any time together recently without someone else there—usually Martyn, or management—some third party to keep them both on their best behaviour, when it otherwise couldn’t come naturally.

When Dan’s plate was empty, he too sat back in his chair and eyed Phil. Silence filled the room.

“I don’t know what I’m allowed to say,” Phil finally said.

Dan bristled at that, but instead of responding, looked away and took a long breath in, and then slowly breathed it out. He turned back to Phil, his face impassive, and asked, “Are we killing the gaming channel?”

“The gaming channel?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that. We’re _allowed_ to talk about that, aren’t we?”

Phil struggled to keep himself calm and seated—he wanted to leave, he wanted to get away from Dan’s tone, from the sarcasm. It had been a mistake asking him over.

“Do you want to kill the gaming channel?” Phil tried to keep his voice even. He thought there would be more pleasantries before they got into anything; in fact, he wished it could've all been pleasantries, even just for one night.

“Oh, so it’s up to me? So I get the blame?”

“I never said anything about blame, I asked what you wanted to do.”

Dan’s arms were crossed and a flush was making its way up the side of his face. “Well, I asked you first.” 

Phil sighed. Might as well be honest. “I don’t know what I want to do. I think if we could avoid killing the gaming channel, that would be… better. But I don’t think…" He trailed off, not quite sure how to say it. "How would we film videos together?”

Dan relaxed a little, uncrossing his arms. “We could set up a space at IRL for it. There’s that extra office. Or Marianne was saying she had an idea—”

Phil interrupted him, “I don’t mean where, or the set. I mean _us_. How would we film together?” They had been alone for barely 20 minutes before the bickering started. They weren’t actors—their tension would be clear as day in a video, and who would want to watch that?

“We know how to make videos,” Dan said in a quiet voice.

Phil looked into Dan’s eyes, relieved that the anger seemed to have left them, at least for the moment. “We did," Phil agreed. "I don’t know if we still do.” Dan didn’t make any move to respond, so Phil continued, “Marianne suggested solo gaming. Like we’d take turns, maybe.”

“Yeah, she mentioned that to me, too,” Dan said, “But it’s _DanAndPhilGames_ , they subscribed to see us both, didn’t they? I think if we were to do solo gaming, it should be on our own channels. Or side channels, maybe.”

Phil nodded. He hadn’t really liked the idea of solo gaming either. Dan was right that the appeal was watching the two of them together. The appeal for Phil himself had been gaming with Dan—if they ended the gaming channel, Phil knew that would be it for him, he wouldn't make any gaming videos by himself. What would be the point? 

“Or a new gaming channel entirely?” Phil asked.

Dan laughed. “ _DanielHowellGames_? That does not have a ring to it.” He shook his head. “Gaming’s kind of dying on YouTube, anyway.”

“There’s always Twitch.”

Dan nodded thoughtfully, “Maybe.” He looked back up at Phil. “Did we decide?”

Phil thought for a bit. “I don’t know. I guess we could try filming something, see how it goes.”

“You think we’d fight?”

“I think… we might not be fun to watch.” Phil remembered the last video they filmed, all the way back in November. Some silly game— _Eggs For Bart_? something like that, some game that had been a _maybe_ for Spooky Week but hadn't made the cut in October—that neither of them enjoyed or understood. They’d played a lot of terrible games over the years, but they could always still find some humour in it, or in each other, to make a decent video. Phil still had the footage; it was 20 minutes of silent annoyance, Dan glowering and Phil stone-faced, watching Dan fail again and again at an unwinnable game until Dan gets up, says _fuck this_ , and leaves the room. There was nothing fun about it, nothing fun about them. It was unfortunately a perfect snapshot of how they had been feeling since tour ended, and it turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. A few days after that, Phil had gone to stay with his parents. And a few months after that, Dan moved out. The video was unusable. 

“But we could try?” Dan asked.

Phil hesitated before he answered, unsure for a second if Dan was still talking about filming.

“Yeah, we could try.”

**Author's Note:**

> roast me on [tumblr](https://schizdroid.tumblr.com)
> 
> ~~(and if anybody would actually read this if it continued, please let me know!)~~  
>  to be continued!


End file.
